I carefully dissected and examined the Ovum, taking down the various appearances as they presented themselves to view; and having requested the immediate attendance of Mr. Perry, it was sketched and coloured without loss of time, in order to avoid any misrepresentation of parts or colouring.
The Ovum is perfect in all its parts, and has evidently progressed through its successive changes and developments during the first four months of gestation in the most satisfactory manner. The fœtus is of the proper size for its age, and, judging from the state of the cutaneous covering, appeared to have lived up to the very latest hours antecedent to its expulsion.
The remarkable facts in this Ovum, in a physiological point of view, are the number and arrangement of its envelopes; the morbid state of some of them; and the effusion of bloody serum within the cavity of the amnion.
Externally we find the placenta covering three-fourths of the Ovum, pulpy, vascular, almost cotyledonous, and covered with the _membrana proper_. It was gorged with blood. That portion of the outer envelope of the Ovum which is not covered by the placenta, seems to originate from the thinning edges of the latter, and to be denser than usual. On being carefully divided and laid open, it appeared bifoliated,—the laminæ are connected by cross filaments. Within this, another membrane is seen, separated however by a slight space which was occupied by effusion of bloody serum, and is itself tinged with red. Next came two less dense and transparent membranes, within which the fœtus lay coiled up, immersed in a bloody fluid.
In all probability we have had here first, an extension of the complaint under which the mother laboured, (membranous inflammation,) to the Ovum; next, an inundation of blood into its internal cavities, through an engorgement of the placental cotyledons. How to explain the actual facts presented to us by this interesting preparation, in any other manner than what is here suggested, I know not.
_Joseph Perry del et Lithog._ _Printed by C. Hullmandel._
D^r. Granville on Abortion and the Diseases of Menstruation ]
FIRST SPECIMEN OF ABERRANT FŒTAL GESTATION. (EARLY PERIOD).
Figura unica. Ovum fœcundum in receptaculo ovarico.